MaxBize [Lexaloffle Blog Feed]

Driftmania

Fri, 16 Feb 2024 17:42:41 UTC

Tiny Tracks. Fast Laps

Driftmania is an arcade time trial racing game. Your goal is to get the fastest possible time on each of the 15 challenging tracks

Controls

Up Arrow or Z: Accelerate
Down Arrow: Brake + Reverse
Left Arrow: Turn left
Right Arrow: Turn right
X: D-Brake
R: Restart level
P: Pause game + Options menu

Tips

You turn faster when holding the D-Brake
Take a good look at the minimap before starting a track. You need to anticipate the turns to get the best times
Grass does not slow you down. It reduces traction, which you can use to your advantage for drifting!
Driving over yellow tiles will activate boost. Boost works with whatever direction you're facing - it doesn't matter where the arrow on the ground is pointing
Garage customizations do not change car handling. Make your car look however you want it to!
An optional ghost can be enabled in the pause menu. Replays are lost when exiting a track

Changelog
1.0.1

Reduced medal difficulty across most tracks
Reduced medal requirements for unlocking new tracks
Ghost now defaults to ON

1.1.0

Revised D4: optional first jump pad, bigger second jump pad
Arrow keys can now be used to change track selection and garage customization
Additional medal tuning

Credits

Created by Max Bize
Music by Vav
Cars (based on) art by PixelArtM
Cover art by TerracotaScarf

Special Thanks to Community Members

@thisismypassword for shrinko8. This game would not have been possible without it!
@TheRoboZ for pd_rotate(). Very useful to get rotations in so few tokens!
@johanp for VFX inspiration. The sprite stacking used here started by modifying your demo cart on the subject!

You can follow more of my game development on Twitter

Curious to look at the un-minified source? It's over here

Interested in competing for the best possible times? Join the speedrun Discord

Need some more help? Watch the Gold Medal Guide

Portal Golf

Thu, 09 Sep 2021 07:01:11 UTC

Portal Golf

by MaxBize

[Click to Play]

Chain portals together to collect all the gold!

Portal Golf is a physics puzzle game with portals. Place portals around the level in order to get the ball to collect every gold bar. You have no control over the movement of the ball and can only place portals before you start the run. Try to use as few portals as possible to earn medals, or just fill the whole level with portals and have fun!

Detailed Instructions are in-game

Controls:

Left click on any wall with a white edge to add a portal
Left click and drag an existing portal to move it somewhere else
Right click to delete an existing portal
Press C to start or stop a run

If you need more help, I made an in-depth guide over here

Note that the game plays much more smoothly on desktop than web - consider downloading it. This is the full version of a game jam game I made last year. Follow me for more gamedev! https://twitter.com/MaxBize

Play music from offset?

Mon, 23 Aug 2021 03:16:35 UTC

Hello!

I'm curious if there's any (undocumented) way to play music starting from an offset in the pattern like you can for sfx(). My end-goal is to cross-fade between two different variations of a track. You can figure out the current music state with stat(16-26) but I haven't found any way to either start the music from a specified offset/row or a place to poke memory to move the pointer for the current music row to another row. Let me know if there's a way!

Super Breakout

Sat, 01 Aug 2020 17:58:50 UTC

Super Breakout

by MaxBize

[Click to Play]

Play as an angry robot head stuck on a rail and hellbent on breaking every last brick! Bust your way through 22 unique levels, interact with 16 different types of bricks, and hop into the editor to make and share your creations!

Controls

In-game

Left & Right Arrows - Move
C | Z - Boost
V | X - Launch glued balls
Up Arrow - Reset balls
Down Arrow - Restart level
Ctrl + R - Return to Main Menu (your progress will be saved)

Level Editor (mouse required)

Left Click - Place brick
Right Click - Copy brick
Middle Click - Erase brick
Left & Right Arrows | Scroll wheel - Change brick
C | Z - Copy level to clipboard (You can share this in a comment below!)
V | X - Paste level from clipboard (You can paste in levels that others have created!)
Up Arrow - Play level
Ctrl + R - Return to Main Menu (your progress will not be saved)

How to play

In-game

Your goal is to destroy the bricks on screen. You do this by controlling the robot head paddle at the bottom of the screen. Use the arrow keys to move left and right and press X to launch the balls and get started! Any time the ball touches the paddle it will go back up! If you manage to hit the same ball a few times, it will split into two! Need to get around faster? Hold Z to boost!

There's 16 different kinds of bricks, each with their own behaviors. Pay attention to how each one works to better plan your attack! Some bricks will drop powerups - try your best to collect those too! The effects will stay until you complete the level. You can always restart the level by holding the Down Arrow if you want to try a different approach.

Level Editor

You can create custom levels of any configuration you can imagine! Levels are created by individually placing bricks wherever you'd like. A red cursor shows your current mouse position and the bottom of the screen will tell you what type of brick you currently have selected. To place a brick, just left click! You can easily change your selected brick by using the Left & Right Arrow Keys or the Mouse Scroll Wheel. You can also quickly set your selected brick to the same as an already placed one by highlighting it and right clicking (just like the "eyedropper" tool in image editors). Removing bricks can be done by middle clicking them or selecting the "erase" brick.

Once you've got everything just how you like it, hold Up Arrow to play it! You can return to the editor at any time by holding Down Arrow. Beating the level will also bring you back to the editor. Create, play, tweak, repeat! Then share it with the world!

Sharing levels is a bit tricky due to extra protections on the web version of PICO-8. To copy the current level configuration, hold C to get it ready. Once you've held it long enough that the pop-up goes away, press Ctrl+C to actually copy it to your clipboard. Pasting in a level works in the opposite way: press Ctrl+V, then hold V to load it in. The level data is just a short string that can easily be shared in a comment or a tweet! Share what you've created with others!

Portal Deal

Wed, 27 May 2020 07:44:17 UTC

Portal Deal

by MaxBize

[Click to Play]

Chain portals together to collect all the gold!

How to Play

Hey, listen up! This game is tricky to get the hang of!

The objective of the game is to collect all the gold bars. You have a green collector that will grab them whenever it gets close. While you can't control it directly, you can place portals around the level to get it where you need.

The game is broken into two phases:

Setup Phase:

Left click on any wall with a white edge to add a portal
Add as many portals as you want. They chain together. For example, if you place three portals, portal one will lead to portal two which will lead to portal three which will loop back to portal one
The last portal you placed will be colored blue. The next portal you place will always connect to this one.
If you place your cursor near a portal, you will see which portals connect to it. Every portal has two connections - an input and an output portal
You can left click and drag an existing portal to move it somewhere else
You can right click to delete an existing portal
Once you're ready, press Z to end setup

Play Phase:

Sit back and watch the madness! You have no control over the movement of the collector
Press Z to return to setup

Tips:

The physics is deterministic - every play with the same setup will have the exact same result
Use gravity to your advantage! The ball is always accelerating downwards
If you didn't beat the level, go back to setup, tweak things, and try again!
Every level has a bronze / silver / gold medal. Win medals by beating levels using fewer portals
Your progress is recorded. Come back at any time and pick up where you left off, or retry your favorite level!

This game was made in a week for #RNDGAME2020. Follow me for more gamedev! https://twitter.com/MaxBize

Super Breakout (with level editor!)

Sun, 15 Mar 2020 19:54:32 UTC

maxbize_superbreakout_1

by MaxBize

[Click to Play]

Hey everyone! This is a Work-In-Progress of my first PICO-8 game, Super Breakout! It only comes with 8 simple levels, but features a fully-functional level editor so that you can create and share your own levels! I still need to add audio, create more levels, and generally polish things up before I'd call this "done." I'm looking for feedback on anything you want to comment on. I'd also love to play any levels you create! Just share the level code in a comment :)

Controls

In-game

Left & Right Arrows - Move
C | Z - Boost
V | X - Launch glued balls
Up Arrow - Reset balls
Down Arrow - Restart level

Level Editor (mouse required)

Left Click - Place brick
Right Click - Copy brick
Middle Click - Erase brick
Left & Right Arrows - Change brick
C | Z - Copy level to clipboard (You can share this in a comment below!)
V | X - Paste level from clipboard (You can paste in levels that others have created!)
Up Arrow - Play level